Cooking, lock-down tales
If there is one thing I have elevated to an art in the 4 months of self-isolation, it is my vegetarian cooking.
No, I am NOT vegetarian, vegan or anything of the kind. I am a plain onmivore.
Which means I eat anything save those with exo-skeletons that creep or crawl. I love cooking meat or any kind. That was a done deal, my friends and family tell me. I cook meat well.
But veggies are another matter. Really???
Yes. How do you make cauliflower, cabbage, gourds, okra, brinjal and leafy stuff excitingly edible? It takes a lot, believe me, its harder than cooking meat. And oh so easy to fuck up.
The maid who used to cook before the lock-down was barred from coming in March. I experimented. It helped I had an audience, of one: my son. For two months the poor soul gamely ate my experiments. But they got better, I promise.
I realised she relied on four basic spices — turmeric, cumin (powder or whole), coriander (powder or whole) and chillies (ah that one). Salt to taste. But listen, there are a plethora of spices out there. In the cupboard sat cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, star anise, cardamom, bay leaves, asafoetida, caraway…. None of these ever found their way to her cooking pots.
So I started. Mixing and matching, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. The spice should aid the natural flavour, not crush it like the bugs I don’t eat. So it was caraway, cinnamon, turmeric, tomatoes and asafoetida for some gourds. Yum!
Then, raw and roasted or fried garlic in some dals. Curry leaves to enhance that pungency. Yes!
A dash vinegar, ginger and a combo of five spices sexed up boring cabbage. There wasn’t much to choose from in terms of flavour, so I could do what I wanted with this one.
Lots of garlic OR star anise, cumin and tomatoes in leafy stuff, diced, not ground.
Well, I leaned. I’ll share here. Keep an eye on this space.